"A million are socially excluded"

Oh the beauty of the Internet. You're miles away but you're still drawn to the place. And so the absurdity of it all reaches a new high with the news that newly appointed Social Exclusion Minister Hilary Armstrong reveals the astonishing truth of "a million people in the UK [being] socially excluded [while] 5% of the population are at risk of becoming so". I'm quite worried she may not fare too well at the Acute Observers' Olympics. Did any commentator dare to ask her where the Blair Government have been in the last 9 years? A report or two shows that the social gap under progressive St. Tony the evangelist has widened like never before...Still, Ms Armstrongs continues :"It's my job to pull people together across government, so that we are intervening early". Never has the concept of velocity seemed such a subjective one.